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2006 Mountain Golf
For our Mountain golf trip in 2006 the old farts went to Murphy, North Carolina, which is right in the western tip of the state, just a few miles from Tennessee and Georgia. Therefore we played 5 courses in 3 states while staying in one nice house with a view looking north to the Smokey Mountains.
The Ninth at Landmark GC
On the way down we played Landmark G. C. at Avalon. It’s just southwest of Knoxville and easy to find. The other guys all liked this course best, but I think most of that was because it wasn’t as tough as the others. I gave it 3 excellent, 14 good, and 1 OK holes, and the 3 excellent holes (9, 17, & 18) were really memorable. It was a nice course in good shape and very “player friendly”.
On Tuesday we played The Ridges Resort and Club in Hayesville, North Carolina.
The course had aeration work going on in the fairways on the front side and it put everybody in a bad mood. I gave the course 4 excellent and 14 good holes for design, but the poor rating it got from the other guys just shows how important course conditioning is to golfers. We just don’t like to play in a work zone or on a course where no work has ever been done. Or maybe I just beat them so bad they held it against the course! I shot 85 with 2 triple bogies, and I thought it was a good course.
The Ninth at Highland Cove
Wednesday we traveled over to the high rent district near Highlands, N. C., and played the only course we could afford. It’s called Highlands Cove and it starts out with a par 5 that is way too hard for a starting hole. The score card says “ Carrying the ravine is the first order of business.” Only 1 of 4 of us carried the ravine and it wasn’t me....And that wasn’t my only bad hole. On # 9, I had a number I can’t even turn in for handicap – some call it “dog balls”
Highland Cove's 15th is a 550 yard par five
The course was in great shape and had some spectacular holes on the front or “high” side. The back side was more level and used water instead of mountains to vex us. No one played well. I gave the course 4 excellent and 14 good holes.
Thursday we went to Georgia to play Brasstown Valley. It is a state run golf resort with lots of trees and water in play. I actually won all bets while shooting a 90 so you can understand why it wasn’t anybody’s favorite course. It was in good shape tee to green and, I gave it 3 excellent and 15 good holes. I think we all could have done better on another day.
On the way home we stopped north of Knoxville to play The Greens at Deerfield.
I picked all the courses on this trip and don’t remember getting a lot of credit for the first four. I do remember all the crap I took for picking The Greens at Deerfield. Let me say this right out – don’t go there! It is poorly designed and not in good condition. I gave it 11 good, 3 OK, and 4 poor holes. Let me explain one of the poor holes. Picture a mountain that runs down into a lake. Now grade a level spot by cutting away mountain. Make your level spot about 25 yards wide and add a cart path on the lake side (left). Now put the tee boxes across the lake. On your drive you have 150 yards to carry the lake and a 20 yard wide landing area that ends after 220 yards in the lake again. If you carry the lake and stay in the landing area, you then have 175 to 200 yards over water to the green! On different terrain it could be an excellent hole, but the mountain was too steep, the landing area too small, and what you get is a poorly designed hole. One old guy hit it up on the mountain and it rolled down, across the fairway, and into the lake.
Almost all the slopes on the course were too severe and many of the fairways not wide enough to be actual fairways.
It was a poor ending to a pretty good trip. Four out of five ain’t bad.
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